350
STEPHEN ROUSSEAS
government. But government, according to some iron law of oligarchy,
is not to
be
trusted in dispensing this basic minimum largesse. He
therefore proposes a
constitutional amendment
which will confer upon
each individual an "absolute constitutional right" to his income in
order to prevent the government from "developing the most extreme
form of tyranny imaginable." The naivete of
this
proposal is beyond
comment.
But there is more to the proposal for a guaranteed annua\ income
than Hentoff seems to be aware of. In addition to providing for the
poor by giving them a minimum income (estimated at $3200 for a
family of three), Theobald grafts on to this "Basic Economic Security"
a supplementary stipend designed to protect the middle classes from
the threat of technological unemployment.
. . . Many of those now engaged in middle management and
similar occupations will lose their present jobs and
be
felt by
prospective employers to have insufficient intellectual flexibility
to take on new types of work. The drastic and abrupt drop in
income which will follow will mean that members of this group
will find themselves suddenly unable to meet the expenditure
commitments already undertaken as part of their way of life,
both on a day-to-day basis and incorporated in their long-term
plans.
Since the complete disruption of this "societally useful group"
is
to be avoided at any cost, a guaranteed annual income for the middle
classes
is
proposed which would be, at the limit, three times the basic
minimum, or $9600. The British economist, Thomas Balogh, was
moved to observe
(The Correspondent,
March-April, 1964) that "Mr.
Theobald is interesting because for the first time one sees the reaction
of the middle-class to the threat of insecurity and unemployment
which has been the daily experience of the working-class from time
immemorial."
Apart from the middle-class, laissez faire orientation of Theobald's
proposals, there is the simplistic belief than an annual, constitutionally
guaranteed income will keep the American economy in dynamic
equilibrium and see to it that the problem of inflation is avoided at
every point in time. I would agree with this prognosis
if
the growth
rate were irrelevant (which it is not in the power context of the
